by Kailin Gow
“Sure!” Jaymie calls, and so Terrence takes out the onions and starts chopping.
While Terrence is chopping, I take Jaymie aside.
“What did you want to tell me?” I ask.
“We should talk in private...” Jaymie looks a little nervous.
I glance over at Terrence, who is busying himself frying some onions and garlic in the skillet.
“How about we talk in my room?” I say. “Is that okay?”
“Look...” Jaymie sighs. “I think it's better if we continue this conversation when we're alone alone.”
“You don't trust Terrence?”
“It's not that, exactly,” Jaymie says. “I just think he might overreact to what I have to say. And my job is to work for you, not him. I need to speak to you totally confidentially. Then you can make the decision about what to share – or not share – with Terrence yourself.”
“That serious, huh? About the Blue Room?”
“About the Blue Room, yes,” says Jaymie. “And about why Gloria Tannenbaum was so invested in getting involved in the first place.”
Having to wait to hear what she has to say is agonizing. I've been waiting so long to find out the truth behind Gloria Tannenbaum's involvement in the Blue Room – and now I have to wait even longer? Every mystery seems to have another, greater mystery behind it. What's going on with the Tannenbaums? What was happening with the Blue Girls and their scheduling conflicts? From Gloria Tannenbaum's records I've learned that there was trouble brewing with some of the Tannenbaum conflicts – but did that have anything to do with Gloria's relationship with Roni Taylor – their blackmail and business partnership?
“What should we do?” I ask.
“Meet me after dinner,” Jaymie says. “At the Blue Room.”
I nod as Terrence calls out from the kitchen.
“Soup's on!”
We go into the dining area to see that Terrence has already finished plating our meals and is in the process of placing each porcelain dish on the dining room table, which he's already set with candles and flowers.
“Wow, Staci,” Jaymie grins. “You sure got yourself a nice catch, huh?”
I look over at Terrence and grin.
“I know,” I say.
Then, for all of a brief second, I remember Xander. I remember how it used to be with him – him preparing breakfasts for me at his beach house on all those enchanted weekends, making me eggs, bacon, scallops. Always so sweet, Xander...
I almost sigh, but I stop myself just in time. I'm happy here, after all – happy watching Terrence cook in my kitchen, so at home in my place.
We have a nice, simple dinner, the three of us. We trade jokes, stories about our childhoods – Terrence tells us the story of the first time he met Danny Blue, his first visit to the Blue Room. I talk about Rita, a little, and about my childhood with my mom. I notice that Jaymie doesn’t talk as much about her childhood – maybe Xander's conversation is making me too sensitive, but it's true. Jaymie isn't really a sharer.
“Oh, I don't remember a lot,” Jaymie laughs it off when I ask her, but something seems weird about that. Who doesn't remember their childhood? Or does Jaymie have some secrets she'd rather keep buried than remember?
When dinner is over, Jaymie thanks us and heads out. She shoots me a look – one that I know means see you later. Terrence and I start clearing the dishes. It's nice, natural. It feels like we’re a real couple – not pimp and Blue Girl, but real boyfriend and girlfriend. It isn’t as crazy as it was in the days of our first romance, but it's something different. Even sweet. I wrap my arms around Terrence’s waist, holding him tight, and he pulls me in to him and kisses me passionately. All that's left is to set a wedding date. Then we'll be man and wife, after all.
Terrence kisses me on the mouth – a slow, lingering kiss, but one that is unmistakably filled with desire.
“You heard her,” Terrence grins, winking at me. “I'm a catch. The PI said so.”
“I know a lot of catches,” I tease back. “What makes you so special?”
“How about I show you, huh?”
Before I can reply, Terrence has wrapped his arms around my waist, lifting me up, carrying me to the bedroom. He throws me down on the bed and all but rips my jeans off before tearing my panties off with his teeth.
“That was a good dinner,” he murmurs. “But I'm still so hungry.” He dives between my legs. The instant his tongue touches the space between my legs I start to moan. He's insatiable, tonight, and the more he licks me, sucks me, explores me with his tongue, the louder I moan. I I'm practically crawling up the headboard, writhing under the intensity of his tongue. It feels so good – so insanely, overwhelmingly good.
Yes, I think. I could marry this man.
Then I don't think anything at all. The intensity of my pleasure makes my mind go blank as I buck under his tongue, his delving fingers that press so expertly against my G-spot.
Then, when I'm on the verge of climaxing, he enters me, thrusting into me, pushing against the wall to give himself maximum leverage, so that each thrust goes deep.
We come together, moaning one another's names.
“What was that for?” I grin.
“What do you mean?” He laughs.
“It was like the old days,” I say. “So passionate – I love when you're passionate like that. But that – it reminds me of how we were at the Blue Room.”
“You liked it?”
“I did!” I snuggle into his arms. “You were more passionate than you've been for weeks. What's up?”
“Nothing,” Terrence says, stroking my hair.
“Really?”
“I just wanted you so much – that's all. I came home wanting you and was ready to take you the second I got through the door – but then Jaymie was here and I had to wait for her to leave before finally having my way with you. I had to hold off for hours. It was excruciating – waiting for this moment to take you.”
“Does it have to do with Xander visiting me, Terrence?”
Terrence freezes. I know my words have landed. “Do you still have feelings for him, Staci?”
I hesitate. I don't want to hurt Terrence, but I don't want to lie to him either. “I chose you,” I say. “It'll take some time before all the feelings between me and Xander go away, but the important thing is that you and I chose each other.”
“Yeah,” Terrence nods, but I can tell he looks a little unnerved. “Sure. I get it.”
“He came by to ask about Jaymie, that's all. He seems, intrigued by her.”
“Well, she's pretty intriguing,” Terrence laughs. “I have to say – none of us Blues have come across a woman like her before.”
It's my turn to feel a twinge of jealously.
“Really?”
“Well....” Terrence grins. “Except you, of course.” He kisses me. “Now let's go for round two, shall we...”
Chapter 8
Terrence keeps me in bed far longer than I'd planned. I'd hoped to head to Jaymie's place immediately after the delicious dinner Terrence made me – I was anxious to learn whatever it was that Jaymie had discovered about the Blue Room and the Blue family's connection with Gloria Tannenbaum – but Terrence had other plans. Clearly his jealousy of Xander had manifested itself in a way that was physically tantalizing to me. He'd never treated me like this before – not for weeks. We'd almost gotten used to each other, in a way. Eating leftovers on the couch, watching movies, sitting in our pajamas – we'd started acting like a normal couple, not the kinky freaks who fell in love over mind-blowing and unexpected sex at the Blue Room. But tonight, Terrence reminds me that he's still the sensual playboy he always was: still obsessed with the idea of transforming my body into his personal playground, in taking control of me, in making me his in every way imaginable: an action at once wonderful and terrible. Terrence has this wonderful ability to transform my brain into complete and utter mush when he wants to: and right now, tonight, he's using that ability to the max. I forget ab
out Jaymie, waiting for me back at the Blue Room. I forget all about Gloria Tannenbaum, the laptop, the Blue Room and the Blue Girls and all the mysteries that this place has to offer. All I can think about is my beloved Terrence thrusting into me, pushing into my deepest and darkest self again and again, using his fingers, his skilled and dexterous tongue, to make me come and come again until I can no longer think or even breathe, but only give myself over to the ecstatic waves – wave after wave after wave – that conquer my ability to think or comprehend who I am, where I am, what I am. In those moments Jaymie is nobody and I am nobody, people do not exist, nothing exists but the dynamic and dark feeling of pleasure that floods through me and takes over me from the inside out, annihilating every part of myself that is not part of this sexual ecstasy.
I lie awake after the third time we have had sex, spent. Terrence has started to doze off alongside me; I hear his reassuring snores. A sign that I've wipe him out too, I think with a smile. I can't help it – I get jealous sometimes, too. Seeing the way Terrence talked about Jaymie, the way he called her intriguing, makes me remember that before he met me Terrence was incapable of monogamy, that he'd screw everything that moved if he had to just to get his sexual energy, so pent-up like a spring, into a state of relief. I want to be able to satisfy Terrence the way all those women collectively had – sometimes that feels like an impossible gesture. How can one woman satisfy the world's biggest playboy? I try to shake away those feelings of jealousy, telling myself that they're irrational, anti-feminist, that I'm better than that. Terrence loves me, after all. He chose me, just as I chose him. But just as I sometimes fantasize about what might have been with Xander – I wonder, worry even, does Terrence fantasize about how things might have been with someone like Jaymie? I know it's stupid to feel jealous. After all, maybe a bit of healthy fantasizing is a good thing. It allows us to experience things in our minds that we'd never want to experience in real life – after all, isn't that what the Blue Room's supposed to be for? Keeping fantasy in a safe and discrete – and discreet – realm, far removed from the domestic turmoil of quotidian life?
I should stop being jealous, I tell myself. And I should get back on track. I've let my rampant libido distract me from the important mysteries of the day – and with it, everything that Jaymie was going to tell me. What could be so important and so secret that she wouldn't share it in front of Terrence? Doesn't she trust him? Could the secret involve him, too?
I sigh. I've gotten so used to not trusting people – learning about Xander's original alliance with Gloria Tannenbaum just about broke my heart – that the idea that there might be more to Terrence than meets the eye is more than I can stand. I can't take another betrayal – I just can't. Whatever it is, I hope it's nothing that casts doubt on Terrence's character – or his love for me.
Once I confirm that Terrence is soundly asleep, I quietly get dressed into a simple white dress, then head downstairs into my new car – a Mercedes – my one concession to my newfound wealth. I feel bad for keeping Jaymie waiting – I'd promised that I'd come straight after dinner, and it's already past midnight – but there's nothing else for me to do. I drop Jaymie a text message telling her I'm on my way and then drive down to the Blue Towers.
It's so strange being back in the Blue Room. Walking into the cabaret area, to the bar, it feels in a sick way like I'm home. The beautiful chrome light fixtures, the chandeliers, the black mahogany bar – they are all too familiar to me. The smell of the Blue Room – the heady mix of cocktail herbs and liqueurs and womens' perfumes – is overpowering to me. It brings back memories of lust, of need, of desire. It brings back memories of the woman I was, of the life I lived before I discovered my Tannenbaum roots, the life I lived back when I was just another escort/Blue Girl working here, letting the Blue Room have its way with me.
Back then, they say that you never really leave the Blue Room – which is to say, the Blue Room never really leaves you. Your whole life, a part of you will be wandering these halls, walking down these corridors, experiencing the sensual overload that is life here. And that is certainly true for me. As I listen to the music – a beautiful woman all in black with raven-dark hair and pale white skin – I lose myself in the sound of her voice, the soft jazz that brings me back to my first day here as a singer, to the degradation and ecstasy that follows. I know deep down that no matter how far I run, the Blue Room will always be a part of me. Terrence might live with me now, but that doesn't change anything. I – we – belong here. It's who I am now.
My feet seem to be walking of their own accord as I make my way to the hotel. Automatically I find myself heading to my room – the room that used to be mine, at least, and used to be Rita's before that – and it's only once I have my handle on the silver knob that I realize it's some other girl's room now, some other john is in there having the orgasm of his life in the same bed where I first let Xander Blue – Mr. X, as I knew him then – make love to me.
I head to the room Jaymie said she'd be in and knock.
“Come in!” I hear Jaymie saying. “The doors are unlocked. My hands are full – just come in.”
“Jaymie?”
I peek in and walk into the hallway. It's dark. Why are the lights off, I wonder? Where's Jaymie?
All at once, it's as if I'm back in those days again – the days I lived at the Blue Room. The atmosphere is full of that sense – the smell of perfume, Rita's perfume, is overpowering. At once I'm no longer in control – like the sapphire bracelet I once wore is shackling me still.
“Jaymie?” I call, more softly this time. “Are you there?”
The door shuts behind me once again. Now I am in total darkness. I feel a brush against my arms and suddenly there's goosebumps on my skin. A cold figure brushes past me. Cold like ice. And the air is freezing cold, too, and I smell Rita's perfume...
“Rita?” I call.
I know it's crazy. Rita's dead – I know that. But that dream I had about her – was it a dream? – the dream where she'd come to my room, where she'd said goodbye, it felt so real. Like I was talking to a ghost...
“Rita?”
Then someone touches me on the arm. I feel it: flesh. Warm, solid, living flesh.
“Staci!” Jaymie's voice is familiar to me. “Glad you could finally make it. I was just about to turn in – I figured you weren't coming.”
“You sleep in total darkness?”
“I hate light,” Jaymie says. “It keeps me up.”
“Can you turn on the light?” I ask. “It's creeping me out, being in a room so dark like this.”
“In a second,” Jaymie says. “I need to explain something to you – first. I don't want you to freak out.”
I gulp. This is getting weird. Maybe I should have told Terrence to come with me after all – just for extra security – but Jaymie had been so adamant about keeping him out of it.
“Jaymie – I really insist on the light. This dark is making me uncomfortable.”
“If you insist,” Jaymie says. “But I'm warning you – don't freak out. We're not alone. I'd rather just explain.”
My heart starts pounding. What does she mean – we're not alone? Who is here with us?
“And Staci – don't do anything once the light comes on. You'll want to, but don't. Just stay put. You have to understand: the way you saw things at the Blue Room before wasn't how things really were. Things aren't what they seem – including the person standing next to you.”
I start and give a little whimper of terror. Next to me? I feel a chill go through me. I feel like screaming, but I'm too scared to move.
Then the lights go on. They almost blind me.
I turn and then, at last, I scream.
Standing next to me, covered in bruises, in stitches, is a man as sick and pale as a corpse. A man I thought was dead.
Ben.
Chapter 9
I should have known.
As the waves of terror wash over me like a dark and stormy sea, as I sit in horror, pinned
to the bed not by the horrific sight I see before me but by my own palpitating fear, one thought becomes crystal-clear: words amid the waves. One thought possesses me: the only thing I can make out beneath the fear and the horror that drone out all else like white light sirens in my brain. I cannot move. I cannot breathe – I can barely even blink my eyes to hide from my sight the sorrows that I see before me. As I shake, violently, uncontrollably, pinned as in a nightmare in place, unable to run, unable to scream, unable to cry for my fiancé to come protect me, I can only think one thing.
I should have known.
I have been so stupid.
I've gone soft. I know that now. Learning that I was secretly a Tannenbaum – with all the riches and power and social status that entailed – made me think for a few short months that I could escape the noxious curse of the Blue Room: the toxic truth that everybody who enters its hallowed, chrome halls must know.
Enter the Blue Room and you never truly leave. Become part of the Blue Room and it never stops being part of you, no matter how hard you try. No matter how hard you work to free yourself, you are like a rabbit in a snake's coiling trap, and the muscles of death only tighten tighter and tighter around you until you have no life, no breath, no existence left. The Blue Room chokes the life right out of you, and it sucks up the rest. But I forgot that. For a few splendid months, I thought that I was free of the darkness that had overshadowed my existence ever since the day of my roommate and best friend Rita's disappearance. The darkness that brought me to this place of the greatest splendor and the most horrific degradation: where I sacrificed my naiveté and my virginity alike to the johns that came in search of their darkest fantasies fulfilled – all in the name of truth.
Once, all I wanted was to find out what happened to Rita.
She had been my best friend in the world, once. The only person I could rely on.
Before I met Ben.
Ben was my one friend in the Blue Room – or so I thought – and the only man who didn't care about my body or want me for sex. Ben had enough of being used for sex – he was a rent boy – gay, but rented out to men and women alike, whoever would pay. It had warped him, made him cold, made him cruel, made him ultimately seek to ally himself with the people he hated most: Roni Taylor among them: estranged wife of Clarence Blue, Xander's much older half-brother and Terrence's father, former Laker Girl and the most ruthless, conniving trophy wife I'd ever seen. Ben had lured me into Roni's clutches so Roni could murder me – and, I later discovered, him – making it look like a murder-suicide. Easy enough. Nobody cares about a pair of dead hookers, especially in Vegas.